FROM A TOP TV PER­SON­AL­ITY TO FIERCE EN­TREPRENEURS AND STYLISH PHI­LAN­THROPISTS, SIX OF MIAMI’S LEAD­ING LADIES HAVE ONE THING IN COM­MON: THEY ARE ON A MIS­SION TO EN­COUR­AGE AND EM­POWER OTH­ERS—NOT JUST IN THE 305, BUT ACROSS THE GLOBE.

The Czech su­per­model has con­quered the cat­walk, strut­ting her stuff for the Vic­to­ria’s Se­cret fash­ion show and land­ing count­less cam­paigns for high-end fash­ion houses like Chanel and Louis Vuit­ton. Now, the blonde beauty bal­ances mod­el­ing, moth­er­hood, and giv­ing back. What char­i­ties are you in­volved with right now?

I work with Feed­ing Amer­ica (feedingamer­ica.org)

and am­far [The Foun­da­tion for AIDS Re­search] (am­far.org). I did a cam­paign with Anna Win­tour and a few fe­male de­sign­ers where we cre­ated prod­ucts that were sold on Shop­bop.com. All of the pro­ceeds were given to moms in third-world coun­tries who have HIV. How do you bal­ance your ca­reer and per­sonal life? It’s a learn­ing process; hav­ing kids forces you to have bal­ance. I am con­stantly learn­ing how to man­age my time more ef­fi­ciently. I pay very close at­ten­tion to nu­tri­tion and try to take care of my­self. But my kids come first, be­cause chil­dren re­ally need that guid­ance and a lot of love and at­ten­tion.

Your child­hood is not what peo­ple might ex­pect. Grow­ing up in a small town [in the Czech Repub­lic] I got a lot of at­ten­tion, but not in a good way. Peo­ple would point at my long legs and stare at me. I never wore short skirts or shorts; I was al­ways in pants try­ing to hide them. I was kind of in­se­cure. I never thought of my­self as a beau­ti­ful girl or that I could be a model.

When was your first big break? At [14 years old], a friend of mine asked me if she could take pic­tures of me. And then, with­out telling me, she sent them to an agency. They called and said they would like to meet me in per­son. On one hand I was like, Oh my God, yes! and on the other, I wanted to kill my friend be­cause she didn’t ask me. But if she had, I prob­a­bly would have told her no, and I wouldn’t be where I am to­day.

PHI­LAN­THROPY PHI­LOS­O­PHY: We are a part of this planet, and we all need to help and em­power oth­ers.